


static

by sxldato



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (unintentional), Aftermath of Possession, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester Use Their Words, EVEN MORE NICE, Emotional Manipulation, Everyone Has Issues, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nausea Attacks, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s09e11 First Born, Psychological Trauma, Season/Series 09, Unhealthy Relationships, Vessel Consent Issues, Vomiting, loving these tags so much wow, nice, these damn kids i s2g
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6027634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn't legitimately sick, he was sure of that much. Anxiety or stress-induced nausea was different, emptier and achier, but it wasn't any better than actually coming down with something. It was worse, in fact, because he knew that he was doing this to himself, and if he could stay calm for a few minutes it would all go away. And he couldn't. He had no control over himself.</p><p>Dean had been certain to make that clear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	static

**Author's Note:**

> people must read my fics and be like "why does this person hate sam so much jfc"  
> sam is actually my favorite and i love him, i promise!! he's a beautiful sunflower child and i want to give him like twenty hugs and lots of feel-better-kisses, BUT i love poking at his brain and he's definitely a little scrambled up there ok  
> i think someone asked about a potential sequel to "two basic motivating forces" and this??? could probably qualify as one??? it'll still make sense if you haven't read that, so no worries there. it just follows the same theme of sam's issues regarding autonomy, anxiety, and my personal headcanon that he's emetophobic.  
> beta'd! maybe take that with a grain of salt idk
> 
> on a more serious note-- this does contain a lot of talk about the lack of consent involved with gadreel possessing sam, and the feelings of violation and extreme discomfort that sam is dealing with. just know that going in, and if you think that those things might make you uncomfortable or upset, _please_ tread lightly.

Nagging queasiness and uncontrollable anger was easily one of the worst combinations Sam had ever experienced, right up there with taking heavy drugs on a diseased brain and drinking orange juice after using toothpaste.

Castiel had healed the flesh wounds, sure, but it was impossible to stop the aftereffects of all the shit hitting the fan. Nothing could dial back the intensity of the shock and betrayal. He’d been given time on his own to take it all in, to digest the lies and the secrets and the _violation_ of it, but when Dean came back it was as if that week had never happened. He could barely look at his brother without feeling defiled, all the way to the innermost crevices of his broken-down soul. Every piece of him, every filthy shattered fragment, had been exposed under a spotlight. 

In all his years, he’d never stopped seeing Dean as a protector. If Dean was around, everything would be okay. It would all work out because that’s what Dean did, he worked things out. He kept Sam safe.

To have the one person in he'd always counted on turn around and knife him in the back… It was like the panoptic rug of his life had been pulled from under his feet. And the bigger they were, the harder they fell, so he’d landed flat on his ass with enough impact to jar his entire skeleton. He could still feel the vibrations.

As if it hadn’t been bad enough, the person who usually hauled him back to his feet was the one at fault. Sam couldn’t trust Dean to pick him up anymore. He’d have to scrape himself together whenever he fell, sweep all his broken pieces into the dustbin, glue himself into a mediocre resemblance of a functioning human being.

Point being, he felt sick as shit and he was on his own for this.

He wasn't legitimately sick, he was sure of that much. Anxiety or stress-induced nausea was different, emptier and achier, but it wasn't any better than actually coming down with something. It was worse, in fact, because he knew that he was doing this to himself, and if he could stay calm for a few minutes it would all go away. And he couldn't. He had no control over himself.

Dean had been certain to make that clear.

“You okay?” Dean stole a glance at Sam from the driver’s seat, and the look on his face said he already knew the answer.

But Sam said he was fine anyways, because Winchesters had a knack for deceit and Sam had learned from the best.  

 

He was able to keep it together, more or less, up until they took the exit into Lebanon. By then, his stomach and his heart had seemingly swapped places. A tightness had closed around his throat and his fingers dug into the worn denim at his knees.

This hadn’t happened in what felt like ages, not since the Trials, and that had been back when Sam could trust his brother. It wasn’t like that anymore.

Dean’s freakish level of perception, however, had apparently remained the same.

“How about I pull over and you can get some air?” Dean suggested. The casual tone of his voice didn’t fool either of them. Sam was high-strung and distraught, and concern radiated from the tension in Dean’s posture, like he was afraid he’d make a wrong move and send Sam into a panic. It wasn’t that far-fetched of a worry, if Sam was honest.

“It’s fine,” Sam said, and then swallowed against the nausea. “I’m fine.”

His face felt hot-- it was probably flushed, too, but he didn’t want to look in the side-view mirror to make sure-- and his palms were clammy with sweat. He was screwed, all signs pointed to that, but he didn’t want to ask for Dean’s help. He _couldn’t_. The words wouldn’t come out, he couldn’t let himself. The last time Dean tried to help, he’d crossed a line that had left Sam feeling shaky and vulnerable, to say the least.  

(Oftentimes he wondered if he was allowed to feel this way, because it wasn’t like what others had gone through; it wasn’t sexual or even _physical_ , at least not really. He wondered if he was just psyching himself out, if this was all one big overreaction, if the deep-seated sensation of betrayal hollowing out his chest was real. After all, he’d watched Dean die over and over and over again, he’d seen the devil long after he’d broken out of Hell, and he’d thought his brother could be trusted to respect his fundamental right to die when he was goddamn ready. This wouldn't be the first time his mind decided to play tricks on him.)

Real-or-not trauma aside, _this_ was definitely happening-- the waves of nausea rippling through his body and the catch of breath in his lungs as he tried to breathe. This was all real, _too_ real.

A gruff yet gentle murmur could be heard over the buzzing in his ears. A dull radio transmission through layers of static. 

“Sammy.”

“No,” he said with as much force as he could muster, hating how strangled and desperate he ended up sounding. “No, _stop it_ \--”

“Sammy, hey, we’re almost home.”

“Stop, just stop, don’t…” He didn’t know what he was saying anymore or what he even meant. He propped his elbows on his knees, held his head in his hands, and willed the dizziness and the urge to vomit to fade.

“I’m not gonna drive while you’re losing your shit,” Dean said, more as a matter-of-fact statement than a passive-aggressive quip, and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Sam heard the gear switch into park, the turn of the car key, and the slow rumble as the engine turned off.

The stillness was weighted, heavy on his back, nothing but the rush of traffic next to them to ease it.

“Dude, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

Sam shut his eyes. If the world could have slowed down for a minute or two, only long enough for him to get his bearings and catch his breath, he could keep going. But time continued to flicker past, relentless and cruel, and it was all going by too fast and he was falling behind. “I just--” his breathing hitched-- “I need minute, give me a minute.”

“Okay.” Dean sounded wary, full of concern. “Take as many minutes as you need.”

Sam counted the seconds as they ticked by, but quickly lost track from the rest of the frantic thoughts swirling around his head.

After what might have been two minutes or fifteen, Dean asked, “You feel sick to your stomach?”

Lying wouldn’t make a difference at this point; Dean already knew he was panicking. He steeled himself for the inevitable vertigo that was bound to come from any type of movement and managed a weak nod.

“I thought you might.” Dean got out of the driver’s seat and rounded the car from the back. Sam didn’t look up to see, but the rummaging of things was enough of an indicator that Dean was getting stuff from the trunk. Then the trunk shut with a dull slam, there was a brief interval made up of a few footsteps, and Dean opened the passenger door.

“You maybe wanna get your legs outside the car?”

The possibility of physical contact was almost like a threat, and Sam's instincts kicked into full gear. “ _Don’t,_ ” he snapped, finally raising his head to meet Dean’s gaze. “Don’t you dare try and touch me.”

The venom in his voice was a shock even to himself, and Dean took a step back. “Alright, I won’t, I promise.”

“Yeah, you promise a lot of things.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

They couldn't have this fight now, not on the side of the road at eight o’clock at night with Dean still defending his bad choices and Sam feeling ready to throw up. No, that was _not_ how that conversation was going to go down.

“ _Please,_ just leave me alone," Sam managed, wishing he was anywhere but here. "I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” Dean demanded.

“I can’t look at you, okay?” Sam shouted, though it was strained and hoarse and all-around not much of a shout by any definition. “I can’t-- I can’t look at you without remembering what it felt like, how there was someone _in_ me and I didn’t even realize, and how you _let_ \--” he pressed his knuckles to his mouth, choking back the painful compulsion to gag. He took a few uneven breaths and lowered his shaking hand. “You _let_ him do it to me. You gave him _permission_ to… to--”

The word was there in his head, but it refused to form on his tongue.

“Jesus, Sam, I’m sorry--”

Sam shook his head quickly, strands of hair falling in front of his face. “You’re not sorry.”

_Verb, one syllable. Archaic: to seize and take away by force, to abduct._

“Maybe I’m not sorry for keeping you around, but I’m sorry you feel this way about it.”

“Don’t patronize me like that. Don’t belittle my feelings just because you buried yours too deep you can’t reach them anymore.”

_Current: to violate, to abuse, to plunder or despoil in an act of war._

“Seriously? You wanna pull that shit on me right now?”

“Right, because it’s only important when _you_ feel hurt.”

_To treat improperly. To ruin._

“That’s not how it is at all, Sam.” Dean’s tone went soft. “I want you to be okay, more than anything. I want you to _talk_ to me.”

Sam’s lower lip quivered and he closed his eyes against a fresh wave of nausea, stronger than the previous ones. He didn’t respond; he could taste bile at the back of his throat and he couldn’t swallow it down.

_To commit the offense of forcing a person to submit against their will._

He lurched a little, the reflex to gag triggering him to cough breathily into his hands. Amidst the chaos, a single clear thought surfaced in his brain: he needed to get out of the car before it was caught in the crossfire of what was surely about to happen.

Dean was saying something, most likely trying to be of some help, but Sam couldn't make it out. He grabbed hold of the open passenger door and pulled himself out on trembling legs, pushing past Dean towards the unkempt grass. He stopped when he gagged again, and brought his hand to his mouth like he had before with the other braced on his knee.

He was working himself up, he could tell by the amount he was shaking, but trying to calm down was a laughable idea at best. With nausea attacks like these, they only died down once he got sick. The actual act of throwing up was never as bad as he made himself believe; the worst part was the waiting, the building anticipation.

Sam dry-heaved hard enough to bring himself to his knees, the overgrown grass crinkling quietly under the new addition of weight. The world spun lazily and he groaned, planting one hand on the ground as not to fall over. God, he was going to puke.

Heavy footsteps approached, boots crunching into the dry earth, the dull crackle of what could only be a water bottle in his brother’s hand. Lukewarm but unopened.

“Sam…”

He wanted to say _go wait by the car, I've got this,_ but he was pretty preoccupied with his body trying to shove his entire stomach out through his throat. And he most definitely _did not_ got this.

He retched once, twice, and then his spine arched as he threw up a meager slurry of his stomach’s contents. In the haze of his peripheral vision, he saw Dean crouch down next to him-- but he didn't reach out to touch him, and Sam would've thanked him for that display of basic human respect if he hadn't needed to vomit again. It ran down his chin and dripped into the grass, and he almost broke down crying right there. No wonder Dean thought it was up to him to make Sam’s choices. _Look_ at him, look at what a _mess_ he was; knelt by the side of the road on a boring Wednesday night, trying with all his might to keep a hand on the safety bar only to find it was slick with oil.

The gut-wrenching sensation of falling while you’re sleeping, and the impact of the ground wakes you. Except that hit-the-asphalt feeling never comes. You stay in free-fall, the wind roaring in your ears and your heart pounding hard against your ribs so hard they fracture.

To not be in control. That’s what it was like.

Sam choked up another mouthful of acid-- beer, sour and warm, a sickening enough taste to trigger another retch-- and doubted if he’d ever been in control in the first place.

Then Dean was wetting a rag with some of the water and passing it to him wordlessly, apologies and big-brother-worry scattered in his eyes like fragments of old constellations, and he felt less alone. Less caught in the midst of a riptide.

“You haven't gotten one of these in a while,” Dean said while Sam drew the worn cloth over his mouth, inhaling deeply through his nose as his stomach began to settle. “... I guess I don't need to ask what made it happen.”

Sam sat back on his heels, ran a hand through his hair, didn’t dignify Dean’s words with a response. The humiliation of it all had set in, leaving his body weak and his face hot.

“You okay?”

“The, um--” He pressed on the space below his ribcage, trying to alleviate some of the ache that was starting up. “The rest of it, it’s still happening.”

 _It_. When breathing got difficult, surroundings blurred, vision darkened around the edges, and intrusive thoughts were as powerful as silver bullets.

“It’ll pass,” Dean said. “You’ll get through it, and then we’ll get you home.”

His eyes burned with tears. He felt so stupid, so helpless, he wanted the earth underneath him to swallow him up.

“Do you want me to...?”

He’d thought he’d say yes if he were given the opportunity, but he found himself shaking his head. “Stay,” he whispered, hoarse and cracked.

“Alright.”

Sam struggled to breathe through the lingering twisting in his stomach, focused on the steady and rapid thrum of his heartbeat, and tried to slow it. When the pain in his chest reached a crescendo, he brought his hand higher up on his chest and applied more pressure.

“Hey, hey, take it easy.” Dean moved as if to steady him, but then hesitated. “Can I touch you?”

Sam nodded and closed his eyes against the feeling of Dean’s palm on his spine, rubbing circles in the space between his shoulder-blades. It was such a comfort and he hated how much he needed it.

“I know you’re scared.” Dean’s voice, low and reassuring, seemed impossibly loud compared to everything else. “But you’re safe. I’m not gonna let anything hurt you.”

Sam was too exhausted to start a fight or to put up with Dean’s excuses, so the words **_you_ ** _hurt me_ remained unspoken. The silence between them hung thick and stifling, draping over them like scratchy wool. The silhouettes of trees off in front of them blended in with the sky. A couple hundred dispersed stars shone, like someone had poked a few dozen holes in the dark canvas from the other side, letting the light trickle through.

“I’m sorry.”

Sam didn’t look at him. “Stop lying to me, Dean, please.”

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Dean said, dropping his hand.

“And that was selfish.”

“It was selfish for me to care about you? Really?”

Sam wanted more than anything for Dean to not start shouting. He could very well burst into tears if it came to that. “You didn’t let me make my own choice.”

“Because you shouldn’t have been ready to die!” Dean protested.

“That wasn’t your call,” Sam said, cold and calculated and barely managing to hold himself together. _The same way someone pinned under a bus holds it together._ “It should have been up to me.”

After a couple beats of tense quiet, Dean spoke again. “You wanna get away from me that bad, huh?”

Sam wanted to punch the self-pitying tone out of Dean’s voice, that’s what he wanted. “Actually, Dean,” he said, quiet and shaky in an effort not to start shouting himself. “I know it might be hard to believe, but this is _not_ about you.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You meant it.” This wasn’t the time or the place for this and he didn’t _want_ to do this right now, but all his anger was rushing out of him at breakneck speed and he couldn’t stop it. “You make me feel guilty for being mad at you. You make me feel like I’m not allowed to be mad because you’ve done so much for me, like I can’t be grateful for all that at the same time I want to kick your ass.”

“Sam, if you could just listen--”

“ _Y_ _ou_ listen, Dean. You use all your sacrifices and everything we’ve been through as bargaining material. That’s a goddamn manipulation tactic.”

“I never meant to--”

“You know who else pulled that kind of crap on me? _Dad_.”

All the color drained from Dean’s face and his eyes became very, very dark.

There was a time, not too long ago, when being compared to John Winchester might have been the highest honor for Dean. Their father had been one of the best hunters of his generation, possibly of the century, and everything he did, he did for his family.

Except that had been the problem. Sam and Dean were all that was left of John’s connection to Mary-- Sam especially, because it was him who Mary had died protecting. If Sam lived, Mary lived, and John subsequently made Sam’s choices for him to keep him safe. Of course, that begged the question: why hunt monsters in the first place if a child’s safety was the priority? But John was a war-torn veteran with a penchant for whiskey and a dead wife; consistency wasn’t really expected.

Now that he was an adult and could reflect on the past more objectively as time wore on, Sam understood why his father did what he did. To a certain degree, he even appreciated it. But there were things John had done as a parent, some of which had occurred in his dying breaths, that Sam refused to let go.

Dean had always been quicker to forgive, and maybe that was why the slow realization about John had been more difficult for him. Sam could acknowledge John’s flaws because he acknowledged his own. Dean’s go-to move had been to deny everything-- John’s mistakes and his own alike-- and losing that strategy growing up had given Dean a pretty rude awakening about who their father was.

So it was a low blow, what Sam had said, but he wasn’t about to take it back. The damage had already been done, and he wasn’t about to lie and say he hadn’t meant it.

“Sam.” Dean sounded as tired as Sam felt. “Sam, I’m sorry.”

“Stop it.”

“No, I _am_.”

The desperation in Dean’s voice caught Sam’s attention, because Dean didn’t make pleas like that unless he was dead serious. That night in the church came to mind all of a sudden.

“I’m not gonna tell you I wouldn’t do it again if I could do it over, because I would. I’d wait for an angel that wasn’t a douchebag if I could, obviously, but… I’d keep you around. I’d do anything to keep you around.”

_Don’t you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you._

Sam cast his gaze downward, breathing through the ache still tugging at his chest. That outburst of anger hadn’t exactly helped him calm down. “That’s the problem, though, don’t you get it?”

Dean raked a hand through his hair, making it kick out at the front. “I’d never hurt you on purpose, Sammy, you know that.”

_It has never been like that, ever._

Sam nodded.

“I didn’t know this would happen, or how screwed up it would be. I didn’t know how much it would hurt you.”

_I need you to see that._

“What do you want from me, Dean?” Sam asked weakly. “You expect me to forgive you for this?”

“No, I just… I want you to understand.”

_I’m begging you._

Sam exhaled a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. He could understand; it was the product of nearly three decades of slowly accumulating codependency. They were a package deal. Going through life without the other seemed… pointless. Empty.

“I need some time, Dean. This-- it really screwed me up.”

“I know.”

The part of him that was still brimming with fury wasn’t satisfied. Dean had never been possessed, he didn’t know what it was like or how deep it could scar. Sam didn’t want to move past this and let bygones be bygones, and he didn’t want to be mature and accept Dean’s mistake, because it had been _far_ more than something as simple as a mistake. It didn’t feel like anything had changed; he was terrified that this would simply be one more thing that Dean would push down and stifle, one more thing that he would let Dean do that to.

But he was also so tired, and he needed his brother. If they wanted to fight more tomorrow, they could. Right now he was tapped out. You could swim against the tide as much as you wanted, act like you’d made a difference, but the truth was that you weren’t getting anywhere. Treading water at best, drowning at worst.

“Can we just go home?” Sam asked, barely caring how childish he must have sounded. “I just want to go home.”

The butt-hurt look on Dean’s face hadn’t completely dissipated, but he said, “yeah, okay, let’s get you home,” and helped Sam to his feet.

The rest of the drive went without incident, Sam with his head against the window and Dean sparing glances at him every so often.

“Mind if I turn on the radio?”

“Okay.”

He heard Dean messing with the dials, muttering to himself as the seconds dragged on without finding a station.

“Transmission’s probably screwed up or something,” Dean said.

“Or something,” Sam agreed, half-asleep and picturing all the severed frequencies in the darkness behind his eyelids.

It was no use, but Dean kept trying the rest of the way home, achieving nothing save for static and more static.

**Author's Note:**

> anxiety nausea is a thing, my kinky ass didn't just make it up (and i actually get this too wow so fun): http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms/nausea.shtml


End file.
